CSSS Alumni Fellowship

Oskar Burger

I have been trained as an archaeologist and am interested in a variety of subjets relevant to human biological and cultural evolution. My dissertation work focuses on the relationship between resource structure, demographics, and human environmental impacts. Ultimately, I am interested in explaining why humans have such an energetically unique relationship with their environments, compared to other biological speces. The theoretical tools I use towards this aim are human behavioral ecology, which allows me to analyze the dynamics of foraging decisions in an ecological context; macroecology, which looks at large scale patterns in body size evolution, species-area relationships, and community assembly; and complexity theory. I will look at modern human foraging behavior and the statistical features of the assemblages of prey found in archaeological sites as well as the recent demographic transition (low fertility among industrialized societies).